Here the Stone Images are Raised
by Fuyukodachi
Summary: Slash: SSLM. Love is a beautiful poison, and the most insidious. Snape struggles with regret and the realization that the harshest betrayals are often those committed against one's own soul.
1. Part One

**Here the Stone Images are Raised**

**Disclaimer/warning: **Standard ones apply; the cat is the only truly original character. This is a work of unapologetic slash fiction. There is a perhaps excessive amount of similarly unapologetic popular character death. It is, after a fashion, a story of love in the cactus land of a man's soul.

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The tea had long since grown cold. Embers shifted in the fireplace, casting a shower of sparks before settling again into silence. The cat had come in from the garden earlier and slept now at his feet. The breeze through the open window was soft. Only the moonlight tracked across the floor, giving a silver sheen to his hair and reminding the cat of other dreams.

It was past full and waning. He found this appropriate, in the sections of himself that remained untouched. "I can't countenance this," he said, his voice rusted from disuse and unshed emotion. "But I must." His fingers found his eyes and pressed, gouging out memory and recollection.

_Severus,_

_ I regret to inform you that our fears have been confirmed._

It should, he thought, have been something less simple. Perhaps that would come later, when they had found some tale to give to the students, something they could believe. He felt the cat roll over and stretch, kneading his boot with its claws. He pushed the chair back, pushed the letter away, and banked the fire with a flick of his wand. This would wait until the morning, certainly. He had nothing now but time.

The sheets still smelled of Lucius, the pillows, and the ribbon that had bound his hair curled around the stem of an empty wine glass. Midnight blue velvet with the ends sharply angled. His limbs felt leaden and unfastening the buttons that held his robes and his dignity together was more complicated than he had the stamina to manage. The cat had formed a warm weight at the foot of the bed in its accustomed place.

He did not want to think of Lucius, but he was too weary to go home. Better to stay in this room, in a disused wing of the manor, and consider his return on the morrow. His clothes were a messy heap beside the bed now, and he could not find it within himself to straighten them or to even put them across a chair. The candle went with an exhalation that was more sigh than proper breath.

The last thought, as his mind gave way to the exhaustion in his heart: _They were meant for more than this._

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He woke as the sunlight poured through the window. In his distraction he had neglected to close it. He realized that he moved like a man shell-shocked, but could not disagree entirely with this observation. It seemed that he should have been more accustomed, now, to this idea. Perhaps it was the manner, or perhaps it was their youth. Regarding his hands (knuckles bony and too angular to be pretty; scars like pockmarks from caustic concoctions), he decided that it was more that they had never properly lived.

She had been . . . seventeen? Her hair swinging as she crossed the courtyard; the boy trailing behind as they hurried to class.

He stood and dressed mechanically, tucking his wand into his sleeve nearly as an afterthought. The cat yowled in protest when he lifted it to place it in the bag he'd purchased expressly for this purpose, but it was accustomed to their sudden travel and soon calmed itself. If he were religious, he would have prayed that he would encounter no one as he left. As it were, he considered going out through the window.

Lucius did not sleep late. Lucius rarely slept, to be more precise, and what sleep he had was often fitful. It was highly unlikely that any sort of confrontation would be avoided. As it were, he was vaguely surprised that no one had come to rouse him for breakfast.

He rolled the letter tightly, blotting out the single sentence, and stuffed it into the sleeve that held the wand. It too was a weapon.

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Later, yes, and out the bloody window. Why had he brought the broom? Why hadn't he apparated? It seemed more enjoyable, before. Now, he could not quite say that he minded the solitude, or the warmth of the cat tucked close to his chest, nor even the official announcement (someone would have had to make one) that he would be spared.

It was too bright. The sun was unforgiving and it was earlier in the day than he had expected. While he had a perfectly good pocket watch stowed away into his robes, he felt that time would make all of this seem more real, and he was still comforted by the certain sense of illusion that things maintained. He wondered who would weep, how many students he would find in his office asking questions he did not believe he was prepared to answer.

Some of it began to crash through his gossamer distractions then, and he pushed it away. He was only ten minutes away. Surely it could wait that long.

  
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Up the stairs to Dumbledore's office. He sank into the chair he had spent far too much time in over the course of his career, and even before, when he too was a student. Dumbledore regarded him over steepled fingers, the dish of candy neglected in the silence.

"Severus," Dumbledore said, soft and lacking in hesitation. Perhaps he did this often.

"Sir."

"Severus, there was nothing you could do."

"That is something I cannot--must never--believe."

"Severus."

"Headmaster, you chant my name as if it will bring them back." He heaved himself up out of the chair, aware that he was too snippy and aware that it would be forgiven. He was trembling and not quite certain why. He turned and left without waiting to be excused. That, too, would be forgiven.


	2. Part Two

The dungeon: quiet and solitude and chill air. His room at the manor was bright and spacious. The cat made a small sound as he entered his bedroom at last. He unpacked it, setting it unceremoniously on a table where it proceeded to nose among his candles. There are better ways to live than inside cages. The broom found its place behind the door; his cloak went to a chair and he began again the process of shucking his robes. It could continue to wait until after he had a bath.

No bubbles in the water; only a blend of oils that smelled of greenery and spice. His nose—far too trained to acuteness by his art—could decipher the individual scents, but this was too tiresome now. It would be soothing, warming. The water was hot enough to boil his flesh from his bones, but he preferred it so. At times, it seemed that he had forgotten how to feel anything other than pervasive chill. The cat perched on the step of the tub. It groomed a forepaw while he shut his eyes and sank into the water to his chin.

She had been good at what she did. The boy hadn't so much, but he brought her the type of joy boys bring young girls before either of them learns that love is not so easily wrought. Potions, again, with children who could not tell one elixir from another, but then she would have been graduating regardless. He had considered approaching her to offer apprenticeship. He was far from old, but his job was fraught with uncertainty, and he would have preferred to look through potential successors while there was time to train appropriately.

He felt old, here, with the blood of children on his hands. Not directly, he supposed. Indirectly, through a lack of action, through too much and not enough of anything that mattered beyond his small and petty existence.

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Lucius' hands on his waist, his lips against his shoulder. A glass of wine in one hand, and the warmth of the fire hot against his belly. The warmth of breath against the back of his neck. Only sensation: Lucius holding his hip, flattening a hand against his thigh.

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Images dissipating, resolving: Voldemort in a chamber deeply underground—moss on the walls, cracked stone beneath his feet. It smelled of death and unopened tombs; he believed Voldemort found it vaguely amusing to deny death by surrounding himself with it.

Voice like a hiss, like a crackle of electricity along damaged wires: "Does it not seem _appropriate_ that we should remind the old fool that there is no safety in sacred spaces?"

And his own answering, from beneath the hood, with teeth grit and his nails digging into his palm, "Yes, lord."

  
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There were claws in his shoulder suddenly, the very tips of two paws' worth. Curling his fingers over his own flesh, he withdrew no blood. The cat glanced at him with a tilted head before it stepped away from the tub to return to the bedroom, tail up and crooked at the tip. He said, tired and tinged bitter, "Perhaps, cat, we should name you Cruciatus. _He_ finds it a useful device for divulging memories."

He stood and retrieved the towel from its hook, water sluicing carelessly from his body. The cat did not reply, though he heard it settle again at the foot of his bed. He considered it luck momentarily that he also spent much of his life underground. Few people came to ths section of the dungeons without adequate cause, and it was unlikely then that he would be disturbed today.

It could not wait forever.

  
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His desk held mail, delivered while he was in the bath by one of the few house elves that refused to be intimidated away. His hair dripped into the collar of his robe, but he could not be bothered to care. He was occasionally preternaturally tidy; his hand fell immediately upon the letter opener when he pulled open the drawer. The top was a note from Dumbledore, the next from Lucius, and a handful of late homework and excuses from students. He cast those aside. If they could not be punctual, they hardly deserved his regard.

Lucius. The paper was so pale a blue that it seemed nearly white, shot through with gold. The Malfoy crest at the top center (as if he wouldn't know this scent, this absurdly expensive writing material, this silver-blue ink).

_So early; you missed your breakfast, my dear. Was it something I said?_

_ --- L._

So snide. He felt nearly ill. Lucius _knew_, had known, and knew even that he cared more than he should. It was a constant point of contention between them. He knew that Voldemort questioned his loyalty; he knew that this was a test of a sort. Sides are so easily blurred in love and war. Dumbledore wrote concerned missives and pressed lemon drops into hands that shook after nights spent ringed with Death Eaters, nights of feeling the Dark Mark ache in his bones.

It was a choice, once. Made in anger and apathy, and then grief and stricken remorse. Both sides played against the middle, with two more children dead. He wondered if he would lose count one day. Already their names and faces blurred together, among memories of lives and the particular flavor of their screams. Lucius enjoyed it. So had he, once.

"Do they not deserve it?" Voldemort was fond of rhetorical questions. Voldemort styled himself a weaver of nightmares, raking the most pathetic recollections again over the coals to fan the flame of devotion he required. Then the whisper, shared only private and among the two of them: "Did they mock you, Severus? Did they laugh when you went past?"

His first: a boy who had been in his class, a mudblood with grey-green eyes and unremarkable dark hair.

"What did he call you, Severus?"

So many memories cresting like waves: his hand, trembling as he raised the wand, so many memories cresting like waves; a burst of green (less pretty than his eyes, however cruel they were) and a body crumpling to the ground.

He set Dumbledore's note on the edge of his desk, away from his immediate view. Too much of the weekend had been wasted this way. He lifted the basket of potions essays to a small side table and began reading. The cat nosed in his disregarded lunch.


	3. Part Three

The cat was a tiger striped little tabby, black and brown. It had harvest moon eyes and drank from his teacup when it cooled. He did not remember how or where or even when he had acquired it as a companion.   
  
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In the morning, he entered the great hall at his accustomed time. It was Monday and classes had not been canceled, though there was a subdued air and many of children (though none, of course, were Slytherin) had red-rimmed eyes or frightened, furtive looks covering their faces. The majority of the Slytherins came from old blood families, many of whom were already indelibly tied to Voldemort. This would be viewed by their parents as a sort of coup, and they would be expected to be similarly pleased. Enlightenment by imitation, he thought sourly.   
  
The young Malfoy in particular sneered at the Gryffindors. Potions this afternoon would accomplish precisely nothing beyond wasting two additional hours of his life. He was not entirely sure that he could bring himself to sympathize with Potter, who sat at his house table between two empty seats and stared into his pumpkin juice as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. Friends and close relations are a liability. His liabilities were the cat and the students as an entire body.   
  
Perhaps he protected them because no one had protected him from himself and from too many nights spent alone and unwanted. Next year, half or more of the graduating class of Slytherins would have a dark mark emblazoned on their arms. It had slowly worsened each year. It had been a decision made because the alternatives were, at the time (still?), worse. Now it was a symbol of status. The Death Eaters had infiltrated the Ministry to the point that it seemed futile to rely on it as any sort of protection or even a proper governmental agency. Dumbledore had become, even years ago, the only thing the side of Light felt they could rely on, and now his children were being snatched from beneath his nose.   
  
They were brought back in pieces. A good thing there are spells to identify bodies, though they had been kind enough to leave a lock of her hair bound with the same ribbon she wore to class. The boy was slightly more ambiguous, though there were not many children so unfortunate as to wear the precise shade of maroon sweater that found its way home with him; a frayed and burnt scrap to mark the end of a life too shortly lived.   
  
Empty eyes; the children were empty eyed. Perhaps they had believed too much in the power of Dumbledore, and the untouchable sanctity of young things. Death is only common and a friend to those old and worn past completion. He had seen it too much, too often. He was only now their fathers' age.   
  
This did not matter. The mark on his arm ached in a quiet and dull way. He found himself clenching his fist in the sleeves of his robes as he walked head down and silent. The world dwindled to pinpoints of action and reaction.   
  
There would be a meeting in another night at the most. In this day, at the most inopportune time, the mark would flare and burn and brand his soul anew. He would excuse himself, though he rarely had a cause for excuses. Even as an adult, he was not well liked among his peers. He would don the robe, the mask; press his fingers against the mark. A ban on apparation, but Voldemort never needed such petty things.   
  
Tiresome. The day passed more quickly than he would have expected. The children were distracted and he found himself largely ignoring his lesson plans. He rewarded and deducted points by default. He had been capricious enough with it in the past that it was unremarkable. He considered brewing dreamless sleep potions, then deadly concoctions, elixirs of forgetfulness. It had been a pity that there was no forgiveness to be found in a draught--nothing to cleanse the stains that remained upon his heart. In the end, it was something negligible: another round of healing potions for Poppy. He supposed she would need them.   
  
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He had found, accompanied by vague annoyance and the resignation that all things deserve ritual that magically heated water did not taste quite the same as something boiled properly in a kettle, and even then, that it was superior when heated over a fire. He did so, toward late evening, alone in his rooms. A trio of thick beeswax candles and the fire were the only light. This was his one luxury.   
  
The pot was acquired quite some time ago, on an otherwise business trip to China. British tea, with its related memories of his aunt and her large and monstrous floral incarnation of a teapot, had never appealed to him. The concepts of teapots in China were small and elegant; molded in only the tones of the earth itself. Of the few that bore designs (carved with a careful hand into the clay itself), he was forced to note that the Chinese had a far greater sense of style than his aunt.   
  
The one selected finally for himself was plain and fairly small, though somewhat more generous than many of those he saw. The man instructed him, in broken English and with a fair amount of gesturing, on the proper use of such a thing, and also provided him with a selection of Chinese teas.   
  
It amused him, this tiny teapot, the careful explanations, the rosewood box full of tea. He opened the box now and took the scoop, measuring with the same careful eye he applied to his potions. Next the water, cooled slightly in the space of his reminiscence, enough to cover the leaves. It sat for a second or so, and he poured it off, adding more water and allowing it to rest. Less than a minute (the space of ten breaths) and then he poured it into the larger of the two cups, and then from that into the smaller.   
  
He sighed, now, the aroma filling the room. Some tension, unnamed properly in his thoughts, though possessing white-blonde hair, slipped from his shoulders. He lifted the small cup to his lips, more comforted by the smell and the associated memories, than he was by the tea or the time taken. He raised his other hand to his face, brushing his fingers over the lines cut too deeply and too prematurely, the evidence of secrets and the perpetual scowl that was a varying portion true and the remainder a wall to stay behind.   
  
He supposed he would be summoned soon. Until then: the tea.   
  
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Memories: the taste of the moon distilled suddenly; branches against the winter sky.   
  
_

> Fuyu no tsuki (winter moon) has a pale tint that indicates a kind of coldness deep inside. Under that moon tea people deliberately break the thin ice in the tsukubai with the handle of the ladle; this solemn and clear frame of mind belongs only to them.   
  
Karenu ho wa  
Chasen no arite  
Fuyu no tsuki

_   
  
The Japanese were such fascinating people.   
  
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It was cold in the room Voldemort now occupied. It seemed almost futile to continue to follow a man (something once a man, at any rate) who seemed to be consistently stymied by a mere boy. Such a pity Potter had never been one to save anything other than his own skin, or to destroy anyone save those who came to care for him.   
  
"Severus." Voldemort sat in a chair that one must assume should have been regal, were it not tattered. One must also wonder what Voldemort did with the money that should have been easily taken from the families he saw fit to unleash his frustrated ire upon. It certainly was not reflected in his sense of decor.   
  
Checking both a sigh and a smirk, he approached the chair, bowing appropriately and murmuring the things one must say to appease those drunk on their own supposed power. He wondered if Voldemort could sense the lack of sincerity. He decided it was entirely likely. He was tired; this was not how he wished to spend his evening, and Lucius would snare him before he left, wrapping one perfectly manicured hand in the folds of his robes.   
  
"What news?" Voldemort asked. "How do they grieve for their fallen?"   
  
"Only what is to be expected, my lord. Dumbledore suspended classes briefly; the children are red eyed and decidedly lackluster."   
  
"And?"   
  
"And they clutch to one another in the hallways, between the classes-- the girls wailing and pleading with one another to avoid certain death, and the boys plotting your utter ruin."   
  
"And Potter?"   
  
"He looks as if he sees ghosts in every corner, every gesture."   
  
"Excellent." Voldemort settled back into his chair, steepling his fingers and regarding Snape through the spaces. "My little spy," he said without affection, only a sort of proprietary pride and amusement.   
  
Snape sighed; he could feel Lucius' eyes on his back. He sketched another bow, adding a flourish, and straightened. The mask hid nothing, none of the personality behind, none of the mood. As he forced his shoulders straight again, as he felt every glance in the room settling on him: _shall we get through this one evening without another bout of crucio?_   
  
"You may go."   
  
He turned and left, through the door. Voldemort sunk his claws in long enough ago; there was no longer anything left to guard. He did not need to turn around to see Lucius detach himself from the wall, nor did he need to listen to hear the quiet footsteps that trailed him the length of the hallway to the stairs and to the landing where he would always apparate. It was therefore no surprise to feel fingers wrap around his wrist, to catch and turn him. His shoulders were still bruised from the last time, and he felt them hit the stone with a pain still slightly sickeningly sweet.   
  
He was tall, perhaps too tall at times, and Lucius, cut from a different cloth entirely was smaller and made of seemingly hollow bones. His mouth found the hollow of Snape's throat, Lucius' fingers digging into his sides as his teeth bit at the thin flesh. Snape could have lifted the other man and thrown him across the hall, but he moved his head to the side, and his hands rose to pull the absurd ribbon from Lucius' hair.   
  
"At least you aren't wearing one of your bloody hats," he said. His breath caught when Lucius, faintly annoyed, bit down harder.   
  
"It wouldn't quite fit beneath the hood," Lucius pointed out, tongue flicking against his skin. "Shall we go home?"   
  
"Let's."   
  
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Sex with Lucius was only recalled later in moments of time, splintered into caresses and the rhythm of their breaths. They had been lovers in an assortment of senses since they were boys together. Mutual ambition, mutual respect at the time, though it became clear early one that neither of them were content to move in the same direction. When family duty required Lucius to wed Narcissa and produce an adequate heir, Severus felt something akin to relief. He had never been accustomed to the idea of love.   
  
Lucius was a possessive man; the distance was never more than occasionally physical. School had ended and Lucius had inherited his father's estate (the elder Malfoy managing to get himself killed at such an appropriate time--then again, Malfoys rarely suffered from a case of poor timing). The wedding occurred in the fall, which some said was inauspicious. Late in October, the country side nonetheless managed to send a fine dusting of snow down to coat the leaves that rustled through the garden. Narcissa, dressed traditionally in sumptuous white, seemed to disappear in it, in the overcast sky and the flakes landing on her veil. Lucius was too much contrast, standing at her side in somber black, her arm threaded through his as they received their guests. Lucius met Severus' eyes over the head of his bride, and Severus knew that this would not be the close of their association.   
  
It had been scarcely a week before an owl arrived, a typically unblemished white Malfoy owl, bearing a scroll and a portkey. A rather obvious invitation that he found himself unable to refuse. They had only rarely shared a bed to sleep, but still, he found that he missed the idle caresses, the interruption of his work. He took to spending much of his weekends in the portion of the Manor now known to be his.   
  
She was jealous in the beginning, terribly jealous. She was frosty and rigid, and frequently attempted to bring ruin to their short-lived pleasures. Lucius plied her with cosmetics and expensive things, trips to the best parts of London, vacations in Paris, in Venice. It was not until he gave her Draco that he won her over and she left Lucius to his proclivities.   
  
As Draco grew, he was nearly as hungry for his father's affections as Severus was. Lucius had little time for the boy-- little time for anything, really. Subverting the Ministry was busy work, after all. Then Draco was in school and regarding Severus over the beakers and vials of potions class, and knowing with all of the worldly wisdom of an eleven year old boy that Severus found himself trapped between his loyalties. The boy would smile. He had learned too much from his mother. Lucius was at least reasonably straightforward in his manipulations.   
  
Severus wrote glowing reports of the fairly mediocre boy.   
  
When he was fifteen, he had told Lucius that he wasn't a liar. It had been snowing and Lucius had laughed. 


	4. Part Four

_Sakashirani   
Natsu wa hito-mane  
Sasa no ha no  
Sayagu shimo-yo o  
Wa ga hitori nuru  
  
In the summer because of the heat, I slept, after a fashion, alone;   
but now it is winter it is awful to sleep by myself on a frosty night,  
with the bamboo leaves whistling._   
  
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Potter sat beside Longbottom in class now, attempting to help the boy now where the girl had left off. Longbottom spent the majority of his time crying large crocodile tears into his cauldron, ruining every concoction despite Potter's efforts. Potter glared over the rims of his glasses at Snape throughout class, accusing and defiant. Snape found himself slightly taken aback, but not altogether surprised.   
  
"And you would have preferred...?" Snape said, drawing near to the boy as class ended and the students gathered their things, filing out the door.   
  
"You could have done something," Potter spat.   
  
"What, pray tell, could I have done?"   
  
"You _knew._" Potter was fairly trembling with indignation. He held his books to his chest like a shield.   
  
"Did I? I should say Dumbledore knew a fair bit more than I did," Snape said dryly, head slightly tilted.   
  
"Don't try to twist this around! I--"   
  
_"I_ think you misunderstand me, Mister Potter. I dislike having my class time perpetually disrupted by your childish anger." He drew closer, leaning over the boy and speaking softly. "Voldemort destroys only the things you care for. What is left now, Potter? He has taken your parents, your godfather, your best friends."   
  
The boy sputtered, his hands clenching into fists.   
  
"Be wary," Snape said simply, turning to leave.   
  
"Are you threatening me?" Potter's voice cracked in the center.   
  
Snape paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame. He blinked once, twice, into the gloom beyond his classroom. "Far from it, Mister Potter."   
  
"Then what are you trying to do?"   
  
"Perpetuate your existence, Potter, as little as you appreciate or acknowledge it."   
  
He left then in a swish of black and irritation, leaving the boy to stand staring after him.   
  
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_Idiot,_ he seethed inwardly as he slammed the door to his rooms shut. He could not then, as he lay his forehead against the cool stone of the wall, decide who he cursed. There was a letter on his desk, in ivory and cream. He had ceased to wonder how they arrived. A twist of something laden with sugar, also, from Dumbledore—an apology of sorts, and a summoning.   
  
The sweet was peppermint and surprisingly good. He tended to only enjoy peppermint if it was fresh leaf and boiled in tea. The letter smelled of ice, of the first crack of winter thaw. He fancied that he could catch a tang somewhere in the fibers of crocus blooming by the roadside, past the stables and near the riverbank where he had grown up. Purple and orange hearts, blue, green variegated leaves. Silence, birds perched on trees encrusted still by snow.   
  
This winter will never end.   
  
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Lucius stood before the fire and poured wine into twin goblets. He did nothing that was not calculated for effect. He knew, obviously, the way the light caught the hair spilling over his shoulders, and the way the rich red and gold of his clothing warmed his skin. Lucius admired the color, and in so doing, admired himself admiring the color.   
  
Severus was, after twenty years or so, bloody tired of this artifice. He took the glass from Lucius and held it loosely in his fingers while he waited. He still wore his cloak. This would typically annoy Lucius to no end, but Lucius was steadfastly ignoring this breech of protocol. Severus was a patient man.   
  
"Still plagued by conscience, my beloved?" Lucius said evenly, leaving only a fine edge of sarcasm to color his voice.   
  
Severus made a slight noise of disgust. The corner of Lucius' mouth crooked in a smirk.   
  
"When will you stop? Though I must confess I find it highly entertaining, Severus. Who do you obey, truly?"   
  
"Myself," he said into the glass, taking a deep drink. Lucius laughed until he had to place his own on the mantle to keep from spilling it.   
  
"Get out," Lucius said, sobering, his face drawing into a frown.   
  
"I hadn't intended to stay."   
  
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Dumbledore was awake, despite the lateness of the hour. His office was oppressively warm, reminding Snape again that his mentor was no longer young.   
  
It amused Dumbledore to serve him tea. It amused him to arrange a tray with sweets and things he knew Snape would not touch. Snape tolerated this and shook the snow from his cloak and hung it before the fire. He sat in his favorite chair, an old and hideous thing that few bothered to sit in. He curled up in it, belying the height of his body and fingered one of the cakes at his elbow. He felt like a teenager, and he was very tired.   
  
Dumbledore watched him quietly, watched him pick up the cup of tea and wrinkle his nose at the contents. "Sir, with all due respect, you--"   
  
"Cannot brew tea to save my own life, I know." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, despite the weariness marring their typically carefree blue depths. "I do it simply to aggravate you, Severus. I can't tell you how sincerely I enjoy your look of distaste."   
  
Snape pulled his wand from his sleeve and tapped the cup, murmuring an incantation. He glanced at Dumbledore through the wing of hair that had fallen into his eyes. Satisfied that he was not being chuckled over, Snape took the cup in hand and waited.   
  
A sigh, deep and heartfelt rustled the papers on Dumbledore's desk. Fawkes lifted his head from his wing to peer at his master, rising after a moment gracefully in the air to cross the small room to nuzzle his head against his master's shoulder.   
  
"Phoenixes are surprisingly like cats," Dumbledore said. "As with many magical creatures, they possess a strain of empathy, though they, of all the creatures we have encountered thus far, possess the greatest deal of compassion for their human counterparts. Fawkes has been with me a very long time. He has lain against my shoulder as I have delivered far too many terrible, terrible letters. It is never easier, not in all of these many years."   
  
Dumbledore toyed with a sweet, a lemon drop, before placing it in his mouth. The phoenix made small cooing noises, rubbing the soft feathers of his cheek against the old man's.   
  
"I didn't think we would be so late," he said. A silver tear traced its way through the careworn lines of his face to mingle with the twin the phoenix shed, sorrow for sorrow. "I didn't--"   
  
"Shh," Shape said, unwinding his long legs, placing the cup on the table without a thought for the drops that spilled on the small table. They had known one another too long to bother with a great deal of formality at such a juncture. Snape went around the desk and drew Dumbledore's chair aside. He felt frail in Snape's arms and his body shuddered as he wept.   
  
"They . . ." Snape began, beginning to make the sort of banal comforting statements that one makes on the other side of death. They would have been lies. The children suffered, and suffered horribly before finding their release in death. He sighed, the sticky-sweet scent that clung to Dumbledore's robes nearly making him sneeze. "It is over for them," he said. "They hurt no more."   
  
"Small comfort, Severus."   
  
"I have none other to give."   
  
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He woke twice, tangled in his sheets.   
  
"There is blood in the water," he said, strangled. "Blood in the water."   
  
He remembered nothing in the morning.   
  
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He wore white for the children.   
  
The sky was clouded and it threatened rain in the distance. The wind caught at his hair and twisted his sleeves around his thin arms. The smoke would carry away from the school, then.   
  
Dumbledore was subdued, moving mechanically through the motions set down a thousand years before. Wizards did not die in fairy tales, yet Dumbledore wove a story of the lives distilled into two shrouded bundles resting on twin pyres.   
  
The Weasleys stood in a crowd to the right, nearest to the fragmented remains of one of their own. Red blurring into red, they held each other and attempted to stifle themselves. It was only marginally accomplished.   
  
They went one by one to stand on the dais and relate their own recollections. The boys having memories that should have been amusing any other time, but that sent them sniffling into cheap handkerchiefs. The girl could scarcely gasp out ten sentences regarding her late brother before she fell into the arms of another. Snape felt that some of this was a bit excessive, but this was their grief and they were less inured to it than he had necessity to be.   
  
The muggles followed. The pair of them stood shaking and too close to one another and not even the steadying hand of Dumbledore could cease their quaking. Perhaps they only had just found occasion to realize that the world they had sent their daughter into so willingly six years ago was not a kind and altogether pleasant place to dwell. This was not a land of fairy stories, no. Magic is not exciting. Your daughter is dead, a heap of broken bones, and what have you now to feel pride over?   
  
He wore white and the first year Slytherins pressed against him in the crowd. At eleven, at a school so very far from home, they fancied themselves adults. They believed in their foolish wand waving far too much. They believed in the power of their first charm, the first potion that did not send their cauldrons melting through the desks.   
  
Yet here, wrapped in the kindness of heavy cloth, lay one of the best of them. Where was the magic then? Where was any sort of salvation?   
  
His mother's rosary sat wrapped twice around his wrist, belying all of this, attempting to assert that there was something more, some greater plan. The plan here was split between Dumbledore and Voldemort. One was perpetually losing, some loss of life or ground to note the struggle that had lasted half a century and more.   
  
Dumbledore raised his arms to the sky to beseech it, to demand an acknowledgement for the destruction arrayed before them. He called to the clouds, called past them to the gods that refused to listen or bear proper witness. He called the lightning.   
  
It struck the huddled forms, forking at the last instant to ignite both.   
  
-   
-  
-   
  
Lucius often sat by the fire in his office reading late into the night. Classical literature, poetry, occasional forays into more modern attempts at art—Lucius was predictable in his habits. Tonight, he had philosophy spread across his lap and a glass of brandy beside him. The small silver reading glasses he occasionally wore were perched on his nose and he looked wearier than he often gave himself leave to appear. Severus paused in the doorway for a moment until Lucius took notice.   
  
Crossing the room, he knelt, resting his cheek against Lucius' knee. He had grown so accustomed to sighing that it seemed as constant as breathing. Lucius shifted the book to the side and twined his fingers In Severus' hair.   
  
"It was today," Lucius observed quietly.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I was invited, of course, but I didn't think it wise to attend." Lucius began slowly stroking his hair, running his fingers through the length of it. Severus had fine hair, like a child's, and he rarely bothered to cut it. It had grown slightly past the base of his shoulders in his disregard. Lucius wrapped the ends around his fingers idly.   
  
"No."   
  
"Severus," Lucius said, unknotting a tangle deftly, "why did you come?"   
  
He raised his face to meet Lucius' eyes for a moment before turning to look into the fire. "You know I can't stay away."   
  
"No." Lucius drew his head back to his knee, moving his other hand to stroke Severus' cheek. "You never could." 


	5. Part Five

Outside his classroom the following afternoon, Potter and Malfoy scuffled. Draco, small and thin like his father, glared in Potter's face and spat, "She deserved what she got, filthy mudblood!"   
  
Snape leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, silently watching. The other students, slightly more aware of their surroundings than the dueling children, moved aside, creating a circle around the boys. The more intelligent ones made quiet excuses and left immediately for their common rooms and classes.   
  
Potter was never particularly observant, and Draco seemed to perpetually be in another world entirely. The two continued to shriek petty obscenities and threaten each other with adolescent curses. Perhaps the late Weasley had been correct in his choice of nomenclature for the blonde boy. After all, Lucius had never possessed as many mustelid qualities as his son presented on a regular basis. Snape was pleased in a quiet, caustic way that the boy never reeked of anything except sweat and expensive cologne.   
  
Draco grew more disappointing each year. The fire in Potter's green eyes was slightly more interesting; despite the unnerving tendency for them to turn the precise shade of _Avada Kedavra_ when he became truly enraged.   
  
"Twenty points, Potter. Please attempt to refrain from engaging in your fantastically entertaining arguments on my very doorstep in the future. Malfoy, my office, and do be quick about it."   
  
-   
-  
-   
  
Draco slunk inside and deposited himself in a chair. The boy had a self-satisfied smirk on his face and he laid his chin in his hand with nonchalant triumph.   
  
"I did rather upset him this time, don't you think, Professor?" he enquired, expecting as he always did to be patted on the head and given a treat.   
  
Snape placed the bag of unchecked essays and assorted homework beside his desk and sat down, regarding the boy with a look far too distasteful to be considered fond. "I'm quite certain you did, Mister Malfoy. However, my question remains what purpose, what point you are intending to serve by these incessant attempts at maintaining an idiotic rivalry?"   
  
Draco blinked at him.   
  
"Really," Snape said, "you're far too old to behave this way. Should you not be considering some sort of larger plan, something more than 'I did rather upset him this time, don't you think?'?" He mimicked the youthful sneer well enough to make Draco blush.   
  
Draco had the unfortunate tendency to be unaware of the strengths he held, preferring to attempt the manufacture of those which he would never properly gain. Draco was not meant to rule through fear. Lucius and those who came before managed it easily enough, but Draco was his mother's child and his path diverged sharply from his father's. Snape felt, through his obligation to the boy's father, somewhat forced to point this out, however ineffectually, to the boy time and again. Snape sighed, wondering if he himself had ever been so oblivious. Likely not: those who had the misfortune to spend the vast majority of their childhoods alone often gained more self-knowledge than any child, save a Slytherin, truly needed. Draco spent too much of his time being little more than a pet and not enough holding his own flaws to the light.   
  
"But—" Draco began.   
  
"Mister Malfoy—" Snape countered.   
  
"Why can't you be more like my father?" Draco demanded.   
  
"Get out of my office."   
  
-   
-  
-   
  
"My son tells me interesting things, Severus. I found his owl waiting personally on my desk this morning, making all sorts of messes in my paperwork. Awful things, birds."   
  
"Your son, Lucius, is rapidly becoming a mewling brat. The boy lacks any proper motivation. He can only think of overcoming Potter in some new way or another. There is nothing in him that serves either your ends or our Lord's, and he is hardly creating himself in a fashion that will allow him any future success whatsoever. Had you planned to have him take over where you will leave off with the Ministry? The boy could hardly find his way out of a damp sack, let alone tug the strings and machinations of the entire bloody Ministry. You let her _spoil_ him, Lucius."   
  
"It intrigues me that you care so deeply for my son's future, such as it is."   
  
"He is yours, is he not?"   
  
Lucius glanced at him, grey eyes meeting black.   
  
"Did you believe I thought so little of the things we promised as children?" Severus continued. "Lucius . . ."   
  
Lucius looked away first, back to his desk, and his hands toyed with a quill. Lucius did not believe in promises and kept none of his own.   
  
-   
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-   
  
As a child, Severus was often invited to the Manor to spend portions of the school holidays. On Christmas morning, the two boys would often wake tangled together in bed. Despite the fire, it was more pleasant to seek warmth in the flesh of another.   
  
Lucius received precisely what he listed each Christmas, wrapped in silver foil and pale gold ribbons. His parents would give Severus one small gift (typically something the boy could use), leaving it on a table so as not to detract from the display generated specifically for Lucius.   
  
As for his own parents, Severus received a missive by owl post and perhaps another simple thing. His mother, though frequently neglectful of her eldest son in general, would give him a book or something else to further his studies. While she did not understand her son, she respected his love of learning. She hoped that, in so doing, he would make something adequate of himself. His father could not be bothered beyond scrawling his name and an appropriate sentiment in the accompanying letter.   
  
Severus loved most the things Lucius saw fit to give him, on the occasions that it occurred to Lucius to do so. It rarely seemed to relate to any proper holiday, and Lucius did not observe Severus' birthday beyond making a bland notation when they next met.   
  
When he woke on this day—a day of nothing except cold sunshine—beside the bed there was a small white flower, wilting slightly in the chill. Lucius still slept at his side, one arm possessively crossing Severus' stomach.   
  
He found himself crying, the droplets falling in silence to spot the pillows.   
  
"Another nightmare?" Lucius said, hazy and sleep-ridden.   
  
"In a manner of speaking, I suppose."   
  
Lucius was soft in the morning, more prone to the sort of affection that he rarely expressed otherwise. He pressed himself close to Severus, his cheek on the thin shoulder, and reached to gather the tears that still spilled on the tips of his fingers.   
  
"How many years has it been?" Lucius asked.   
  
"Twenty-two."   
  
"I love you," Lucius said quietly, nearly unheard.   
  
Severus sighed softly and turned to his side. "And I, you," he said, gathering Lucius into his arms.   
  
-   
-  
-   
  
"There is a plan," Snape insisted. "There is always a plan."   
  
"Certainly, Severus, but we have yet to uncover how far it reaches," McGonagall said gently.   
  
"What do you intend, Minerva? They will force your hand, as they have always done." He frowned; the last quarter inch of his tea was cold and bitter.   
  
Trelawney sat too close to the fire, resting her chin on the hand that emerged from the pile of lace that passed for her clothing. She murmured to herself frequently these days, and more than one staff member was of the opinion that Dumbledore kept her on to avoid breaking her heart. She stirred and turned to Snape, the scent of cheap incense wafting from the folds of fabric. "What do you see in the bottom of your teacup, Severus?"   
  
Snape was one of those. "Nothing, Sybil, save the stains of time," he said patiently, in the sort of voice one uses with the young and the insane.   
  
Trelawney sniffed, pointedly returning her gaze to the fire. "You will be next," she said, pretending to be oblivious to the sneer in his voice and the upraised and wry eyebrow.   
  
"Mm. My Lord has been prophesying my death for over twenty years, Sybil. Still, I do find it somewhat flattering that I've now joined the ranks of our beloved Boy Who Lived and earned my rightful place in the daily death update."   
  
"Severus," Dumbledore said, weary and warning.   
  
Snape paused thoughtfully, tapping his lips with a finger. "What is the purpose of this duplicity on my part if not to provide some sort of advantage? An advantage which you, as of now, do not see fit to make proper use of. Am I wasting my time, Albus? Is all of this for naught?"   
  
"It isn't the time." Dumbledore rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We must wait. I must counsel patience in this."   
  
"For what?" he snapped. "How many more of your precious Gryffindors do you want delivered in pieces?"   
  
"Harry is still young, still too young for the sacrifice he must make. The prophecy—"   
  
"And this—this _charlatan_ is your prophet?" Snape flung one hand at the woman huddled and singing softly to herself by the fire. "You will waste innocent lives for a 'prophecy', and then dare to speak of too great a sacrifice being demanded of one bloody foolish boy?"   
  
"She has the Sight, Severus. It is erratic, yes, but she sees truly when she sees."   
  
"The Sight," Snape repeated quietly. He sat stiffly in his chair now, spine straight and hands moving with the icy calm that came upon him in anger. "Albus, perhaps it is simply that you have little idea truly what you consign your charges to by doing this, by refraining from action here."   
  
"I have never agreed to abandon them to their fates, Severus."   
  
"You may as well have." He stood and turned his back on the room, feeling McGonagall's worried gaze settle on his shoulders. He heard her soft intake of breath, and heard even in the silence her intention to find peace between them.   
  
"This is not the time for apologies, Minerva. There are things none of you understand. You take this too lightly now. You are too secure in your belief in some sort of higher guidance in this matter. Prophecies—what comfort do you think they derived from the belief that Harry would somehow magically make it all better, when they themselves were being stripped flesh from bone by Voldemort and his minions? What are words when they are dying alone and shrieking somewhere deeply underground?   
  
"And you will not save them. You will do nothing to prevent it when it happens again and again, as Voldemort takes your children one by one, because you believe that this is all foretold in the stars, in her pack of cards, in the crystal balls of her 'art.' I can't agree to this course of action, and yet I have little choice but to continue to obey my 'masters.'" His tone was bitter, and he refused to meet their eyes. "I can't promise you, however, that I will not do everything in my power to prevent even one more child for paying for the sins of its birth."   
  
The door did not slam behind him; he was too controlled for such a display.   
  
Dumbledore clasped McGonagall's thin hand in his, rubbing her chill and trembling fingers to warm them. "Is this not also foretold, Sybil, that one should arise in the least likely of places and gather the wayward home?"   
  
But Trelawney only watched the patterns cast on the walls by the last light and did not reply. In time, Dumbledore rose to guide her to her rooms.   
  
-   
-   
-   
  
The cat sat on the edge of the desk and watched him open and discard tea after tea. He was annoyed, deeply and terribly annoyed, and nothing would suit this mood. The cat said little, and only made a soft _nyao_ when his fingers lingered over an amber jar of oolong.   
  
"This?" he asked, removing the lid and lifting it to his nose. "I've hardly touched this."   
  
The cat tilted its head, regarding him unblinking through autumn eyes.   
  
"These are the days of love and hate," he commented, reaching for the teaspoon. 


	6. Part Six

"And what does Dumbledore say?" Lucius asked in a bored and lilting tone.   
  
"Nothing," Snape said wearily, rubbing his aching temples. "He suggests that we wait until Potter is ready to rise and slay our Lord once and for all."   
  
"Really." Lucius did not appear impressed. "And what will you do?"   
  
"I haven't the faintest idea."   
  
Lucius stepped behind him and took his hair in his hands, braiding it neatly. "Come," he said. "Dumbledore is old; his plans have been suspect at best for half of our lives. He places far too much stock in the words of his supposed prophets and wastes time and lives assuming that one day the stars will align and everything will fall into place for him."   
  
"Yet our Lord is continually thwarted by Dumbledore's pet boy."   
  
Lucius sneered at the idea and chuckled softly. "There are reasons, my love, why I think little enough of what _he_ intends to do, also."   
  
"Then why do you continue to obey him?"   
  
"For a time, we were simply moving in the same direction. Now, for habit and obligation, and simply because it disturbs the majority of my enemies to think I am one of his creatures. Why do you continue to obey Dumbledore? Haven't you had enough of his aged idiocy yet, much as you and I both have had more than enough of Voldemort's delusions of grandeur?"   
  
"When we were children, we did foolish things."   
  
"Such as falling in love with those we knew to be utterly wrong for us?" Lucius was wry.   
  
"He was a beautiful boy, wasn't he, before all of this foolishness of wishing to live forever."   
  
Finished with Snape's hair, which now hung in a tail down his back, strands twisted tidily together, Lucius turned to stretch. "Hero worship, I suppose. And now look what's become of him."   
  
"Look what's become of us," Snape said quietly.   
  
"Indeed. Your hair in a braid actually suits you, you know. It does something pleasant with your cheekbones and jaw."   
  
"Oh, come off it.  
  
"When you were a child," Snape added, listening to Lucius rustle through the papers on his desk behind him, "you were troubled that the Ministry was already becoming corrupt, and more concerned with power than the administration of magic. Voldemort intended to overthrow and remake it in his image. And you, young and starry-eyed, were convinced that his way was the best way. And what think you now, of all of this, of how his plans have changed and warped in the last thirty years? When did you begin to believe that muggle-born children were the scourge upon the face of Wizardry, and when did you lose sight of what you cared for when you were young—which, then, was only the magic?"   
  
Lucius stilled, silent except for the hush of breath. "I have never appreciated the idea of magic in the hands of Mudbloods."   
  
"Should they die for it, for nothing more than being born to the wrong set of parents?"   
  
"Done is done, love." Lucius found the sheet of parchment that held Draco's last potions essay and seated himself in Snape's chair to read through it.   
  
Snape was irritated, less so at the man behind him than at himself and his own indecision. "I am tired of watching this occur and being told from one corner that it is the Way, and from the other, that I should wait."   
  
"Then manage Voldemort yourself," Lucius said grandly, eyeing Snape over the edge of the paper. "I have no great tie to His Grisliness. It will be a bit embarrassing when it is over and I must explain at some society function that it was all a grave mistake on my part, or perhaps that I was held in thrall this entire time. Picture opportunity with the family: I will look contrite and abashed, Draco will look up adoringly his father who has joined the straight and narrow, and Narcissa will regard us both with support and long-suffering grace. I own the bloody paper these days, after all."   
  
"You're an idiot, Lucius."   
  
"One of us must be, I suppose."   
  
-   
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-   
  
Potter had taken to wearing one of her pins fastened to the lapel of his robe. His friends thought it touching and brave and considered doing similar things, or putting a remnant of her S.P.E.W. memorabilia on their clothes or book bags. It was truly very appalling, in the way that only Potter's notions could be, but it seemed to keep the Gryffindors from bursting into tears at random occasions. They felt, after all, that they did honor to the sacrifice of their former classmates. Buttons, and ribbons, and pins: Snape realized that he was perhaps out of his league when it came to understanding the minds and methods of seventeen-year-olds.   
  
He did find himself glaring at Potter more than usual as the class period wore on. This was his excuse, at least, later when Longbottom's potion exploded and coated the surrounding children in fizzy green goo.   
  
"Tastes a bit like marshmallows," Longbottom said cheerfully, wiping a smudge from his cheek and popping it into his mouth.   
  
Snape stared, unable to fathom the level of stupidity displayed before him. "You blithering idiot," he said slowly, "have you any idea how potentially poisonous and lethal your actions were? I assure you, you are more than adequately fattened up without consuming the poorly produced potions in my classroom. Go and see Madam Pomfrey before you drop dead at my feet, and be quick about it. I don't know how you manage to fail so spectacularly at the most stunningly simple tasks."   
  
Longbottom's trademark crocodile tears stood on his quivering round cheeks as he pushed his chair back and flattened his pudgy hands on the desk. "Well, it isn't as if I've got Hermione anymore to help me, and you don't even care whether I succeed or not, you just want to make fun of me and—and laugh at me, like everyone else."   
  
Snape blinked twice and the children cringed. Even the Slytherins flattened themselves together, wishing to be unseen and unheard in the face of his wrath. Snape, however, found his lips twitching. The combination of the slimed Gryffindors and the idea of Longbottom finally locating a spine was likely the last straw after a month of severe stress on Snape's part.   
  
"Ten points for your cheek, Longbottom, and for destroying my classroom," he said stiffly, stalwartly refusing to notice the clump that dripped from Potter's hair to plop on the table. "The rest of you, go clean yourselves. Assuming you aren't stupid enough to _eat_ it, it shouldn't cause you any undue distress. Report to Pomfrey if you suddenly develop a rash or any other allergic reactions."   
  
He managed to make it back to his rooms before leaning against the door and laughing until his stomach ached. The cat regarded him as if he had lost his mind finally, and he supposed it wasn't terribly far from the truth.   
  
-   
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The tea was cold on the desk, beginning to congeal as the days passed. He found himself observing the slow and steady growth of mold with detached scientific interest. He ignored the ache in his arm, the sudden spur of flame that occurred when Voldemort's thoughts turned to him. Papers collected in the bin beside his desk and if it were not for the exuberant house elves, the fire would not have been lit in the grate for nearly a week.   
  
As it was, the cat nudged his hand as he stared at nothing, thoughts growing as thick and cloudy as the tea. He scratched its ears obligingly until it purred, butting its head against his palm. He had, since childhood, managed the bouts of sudden and overwhelming depression by throwing himself more deeply into his work, but none of that appealed to him now.   
  
Voldemort summoned them more often than he had in recent years, calling a meeting nearly every week. Snape had been in his good graces long enough that most sessions passed without any additional suffering other than what was caused by maintaining his façade of loyalty. Lucius plotted something, he knew, but he was, through typical Slytherin politics, excluded from the machinations. They hadn't slept together in most of a month, which was rare enough to draw snide commentary from Narcissa.   
  
Snape's own plan had been to survive, come what may. He supposed there should have been something greater than this, a more encompassing objective than the painful simplicity of instinct. He discovered suddenly that he missed Lucius' hands on his waist more than anyone reasonably should, and that their childhood was so far gone that he could no longer remember the boy he had been, or how it had felt to see the possibility in the dawning of each day.   
  
Angry now at himself, he considered throwing the cup and its contents across the room, but it had been a gift, and one should never be disrespectful of gifts. He dug the nails of his left hand into his skin instead and lifted the pile of essays and reports that needed marking.   
  
Potter alternated between producing poor-quality work and attempting to outdo everyone 'in her honor!' or some other such nonesense. Longbottom's paperwork was ink stained and covered in something that seemed to distinctly resemble the footprints of a frog. Malfoy's tiny spidery handwriting outlined the experiment and following results with the sort of precision that his father demanded and Snape would have admired if he believed it came from the boy's own devotion. The Slytherin class was sadly unremarkable this year, and the Gryffindors were always idiots. The children suffered through Potions because it was a requirement; none of them had any desire for the art. There was a Ravenclaw girl who showed promise, but there was always a Ravenclaw who showed promise—it was a requisite of the house. They were often the only ones who had any lust for academic achievement, but they brewed for the sake of the mark or for the sake of the learning, not for the potion itself—not for the beauty of the poison, or the elegance in each decoction.   
  
The children typically dreamed only of becoming aurors, of fighting the 'evil' that had been ever-present for as long as Snape could recall. Otherwise, there were families such as the Weasleys, who lived scarcely within their means, attempting to eke out an existence as close to muggle as possible, save a few tedious magical exceptions. In the days when the school was created, perhaps the founders had believed in the power of magic beyond simple convenience, in its abilities to surmount and subvert and, in the case of the Hufflepuffs, simply to defeat opposition through tenacity.   
  
The stack of papers dwindled slowly, reforming to his right. His ledger filled itself out obediently, the mark beside each student's name resolving into the updated tally. It was mindless work.   
  
He had been one of the better students of his year, easily topping the Slytherin class and only occasionally being eclipsed by an ambitious Ravenclaw. Schoolwork was logical; it made simple sense. One could be reasonably certain that a potion, brewed properly, would produce the same result each time. He taught the children the same way, with the same methodical diligence, yet the results varied wildly. It had never occurred to him to approach them any other way.   
  
The wicks on the candles needed to be trimmed when he finished. The cat was asleep at his feet, tucked half under the hem of his robes and applying a warm weight to his ankle. Stiff backed and weary, he rose from his desk. He dumped the papers back into the basket to be redistributed to the children on the morrow and sought his bed. The cat, disgruntled by the sudden absence of its pillow, stretched and followed. It leapt heavily up to the foot of his bed and curled, nose to tail, to resume its slumber. Snape undressed and joined it, sliding between the cold sheets and wishing fervently that his bed held more than a small recalcitrant feline.   
  
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**A/N:** _Thank you to everyone who has reviewed the story so far; I've received more a response than I expected and I have greatly appreciated it. If you've asked a question, I've done my best to reply to you via email. _


	7. Part Seven

"I miss you," he said, teeth clenched against the unfamiliar words.   
  
Lucius lifted both carefully sculpted brows in a mockery of surprise. "Do you?" he asked, sly. "I think I have not heard you say such a thing since we were children, Severus."   
  
"I have not."   
  
Lucius held a hand aloft in the light streaming through the wind, in the echoes of firelight from behind them both. He inspected his nails casually, and twisted the rings on his fingers straight. "When you thought I might be killed by my father—do you remember? Some foolishness when they thought I should spend more time with . . . ah, pureblooded women. He was rather angry, wasn't he?"   
  
"Yes," he replied shortly. He was rapidly becoming angry. Lucius was, in typical fashion, dancing around the issue rather than addressing it.   
  
"And now you _miss_ me. Well. Whose fault is that, Severus? Your loyalties seem to lie more with Dumbledore these days. I can hardly coax you away from that school to attend a meeting, let alone my bed."   
  
"'That school' is my place of employ, Lucius," he said sharply. "I have—"   
  
"Responsibilities, yes, I know—always the responsibilities. To your students, your precious headmaster, your fellow faculty—what of your lord? What of _me_—ostensibly your beloved?" Lucius glanced at him.   
  
"Are you _jealous?"_ Snape asked, his anger draining away into stunned silence.   
  
"Would that surprise you?" There was no inflection whatsoever in Lucius' voice; they rang in the empty air like chisel blows.   
  
"Clearly it would." Snape found the chair behind him with one groping hand and sat down heavily.   
  
-  
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-   
  
He woke with Lucius' name on his lips, expelled in a harsh sob of breath and awakening. He crawled from the bed gracelessly and stumbled to the bathroom where he proceeded to vomit dryly for a quarter of an hour.   
  
The cat sat in the doorway and observed, tail curled around its paws.   
  
_

> "I can't tell you what I'm planning, Severus. You are foolish to suggest such a thing," Lucius said.   
  
"There is a quality of fatalism to you these days that concerns me." His voice was steady, a professor's voice.   
  
"Oh, it concerns you, does it? Concern—over my safety, the fruition of your own plans, those of Dumbledore's? I've rarely known you to be simply concerned, Severus."   
  
"You are courting death."   
  
Lucius laughed, then."I am courting immortality!"

_ "Why this, why now?" he asked the cat. "Do I dream, or do I wake into the nightmare?"   
  
-  
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-   
  
"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore asked, regarding him genially over the rims of his spectacles.   
  
Snape was incapable of restraining the grimace that twisted his mouth. "Must all meetings with you begin with, 'Lemon drop?'" It was too warm in the office, always too warm. Old bones, he supposed.   
  
Dumbledore blinked, fishing a hand into the dish of sweets. "Chocolate?" he offered instead, surfacing with a fist's worth of silver foiled confections.   
  
Snape felt his face settle into a frown. He accepted a small biscuit from the plate on the edge of the desk, took a mollifying nibble of the edge. "Sir, I would appreciate if you did not spend the entirety of this evening attempting to purchase and coddle me with candies."   
  
Dumbledore set the chocolates into a spinning above the dish, their orbits crossing and weaving in a pattern that made Snape's head ache. "Does the mark burn, Severus?" he asked in the same tone that he might have used to offer tea.   
  
Snape schooled his features to blankness, startled and unwilling to admit it. "Nearly all of the time," he said evenly.   
  
"Do you think he suspects?"   
  
_That I am your pet spy, as well?_ "Lucius plays a complex game; I do not know what he has chosen to reveal, or what he believes merely on conjecture."   
  
"He will betray you." It was not quite a question. Dumbledore's eyes lifted from his chocolates to pin his gaze and hold it.   
  
A cold lump of dread settled in his stomach. "Likely so," he replied, maintaining his mien of indifference.   
  
"Severus—"   
  
"We are no longer children, headmaster. We will both pay for our sins." He rose to go, brushing crumbs from the lap of his robe. He had apparently consumed the entirety of the biscuit.   
  
-  
-  
-   
  
Of course, Potter had never grown out of the fascination with meeting in hidden or otherwise disused rooms. A motley assortment of Gryffindors (the usual suspects, he deemed them privately), a few Ravenclaws, a straggling Hufflepuff. _No Slytherins; color me surprised._ He strode through the doorway with typical affectation, robes swirling impressively. He wondered if he should thank his tailor.   
  
"I think," Potter had been saying, "that we should make a statue, you know, in the courtyard of both of them together. Maybe we can get some of the professors to help." He gestured with his hands, outlining the general idea of his proposed statuary. He was entirely unaware of who stood behind him.   
  
"Potter," Snape said warningly, scraping long-suffering indignation from his voice. Statues—the very idea was absurd.   
  
The boy wheeled around, green eyes wild behind his glasses. "Don't you agree that there should be some sort of memorial, professor? I was thinking—"   
  
"—of some sort of impressively large stone edifice for Hagrid's pet birds to excrete upon? Perhaps it should even be erected near his hut! That seems an entirely fitting manner with which to memorialize one's nearest and dearest friends, Potter." He sneered, reducing the idea to something to be ground beneath his feet.   
  
Potter glared. Snape's eyebrows lifted a fraction. _Impertinent brat._ "As a bit of advice, Potter, that hat clashes rather unpleasantly with your eyes." It seemed to have been begun in red, and then, having run out of the appropriately colored yarn, the daft girl had swapped it for electric blue. It was also slightly too small for the boy's head. As a result, his untidy fringe was plastered to his forehead.   
  
"She _made_ it," Potter said, still clinging to the idea that a distillation of a soul can still be held trapped in something of its own creation. A bloody good thing inventiveness was not always so binding—half of his soul would be bottled on Pomfrey's shelves.   
  
"Was she colorblind?" He dispersed the remaining children with a glare, sending them running to their common rooms. He had an excellent memory for faces; he would deduct points and assign punishments when he was through with the boy.   
  
"She _wanted_ them to be _happy,"_ the boy grated.   
  
"Freedom is happiness?" A novel concept.   
  
Potter seemed uncertain, now—perhaps he'd realized he'd just been shouting as his professor. "She thought so," he said uncomfortably. "Sir."   
  
"Well." He tried for a shred of compassion. The glint in the boy's eyes was truly disturbing. "Now she is truly free, is she not?"   
  
The boy clenched a fist.   
  
"Potter."   
  
"Sir."   
  
He sighed. "At times, death is preferable to slavery. You are fortunate that Voldemort only saw her as an otherwise deplorable Mudblood and a friend of yours. Had he noticed properly any of her exceptional skills with magic, arithmancy, or potions, it may well have gone worse for her. She would have been 'useful,' likely put under Imperius and forced to serve." _In more ways than the obvious._ "Potter, listen to me. She died quickly; it was the killing curse for her." He was lying. The boy didn't know—would never know—the truth.   
  
"Like my mother. Screaming." Potter's eyes were haunted, the glitter of madness fading into horror.   
  
"Yes, like your mother."   
  
Potter sat down heavily in one of the student chairs. "I couldn't save her." Snape began to feel like a confessor. It was not a sensation that he could say he enjoyed. "You could have!" Potter continued on, raving.   
  
"No, Potter, I could not." He cut the boy off smoothly. "I assure you, however, that I would have done so if it had been within my knowledge or my power to do."   
  
"You didn't like her!" Futile, childish protesting.   
  
He surprised himself with honesty. "I'd intended to ask her if she would consider apprenticeship to me when her N.E.W.T.s were through."   
  
Potter shut his mouth, having opened it to shout at Snape again. "Did you really?"   
  
"She was very gifted."   
  
He heard an odd snuffling sound emanating from the boy, followed by hiccoughing and wheezing. Potter was crying. Snape simply looked at him. Eventually, Potter pulled the hat from his head and mopped his face with it.   
  
"She would not have appreciated a statue," Snape said when the teenage angst died down a bit. "Weasley may've. She would have found it ludicrous and embarrassing."   
  
"Y-you're right, sir." Suddenly polite.   
  
Snape was, appropriately, suddenly annoyed. He heaved himself away from the desk and took Potter's shoulders in his hands, leaning close to the boy's face. "_Live_, Potter," he demanded. "Stop dying simply because they've already gone." He released the boy, turning to shake his head and begin calculating points.   
  
A sniffle, a shift of body behind him—Potter tidied himself up. "How do you do it?"   
  
Snape paused, surprised at the question. "I died a long time ago, Potter. Fifty points from Gryffindor for organizing secret meetings, inciting students to wander the halls at night, and showing a complete disregard for authority."   
  
-  
-  
-   
  
The cat twined around his ankles, wrapping itself around and around his feet until it became hopelessly tangled in his robes. There was a tin of expensive tea sitting on his desk, atop the essays he had meant to mark this evening. A fall of curling silver and white ribbon trailed down the side of it, brushing the top of a sealed note.   
  
-  
-  
-   
  
When he saw Lucius again, they spoke of none of it. Lucius' lips were chill and his mouth had a flavor of mint leaves and peaches. His hair submitted to Severus' impatient unbinding and fell around their faces when they embraced.   
  
The strange hunger of it and the tang of betrayal took him by surprise. "Are you so ambitious?" he asked, wrapping his long fingers around Lucius' jaw, forcing Lucius to meet his eyes. "Would you sell me to further your own ends? Would you sell me?"   
  
Lucius attempted ineffectively to break Severus' hold. "What have they been telling you?"   
  
Severus frowned, knitting his brows in thought. "I see it in you, in your eyes. You hide and misdirect, and while you have been doing this since you learned to speak, you have not done it so often or so desperately within my presence.   
  
"You would," he continued, covering Lucius mouth with his own to halt the protest. The kiss was tender, thorough.   
  
"Will you—what will you do?"   
  
It was nearly an answer. He considered Lucius: Lucius had beautiful bones—his faced lacked the dreadful pointed quality that his son's had. He transferred his kiss to Lucius' cheek. It occurred him that he would wait.   
  
"Severus?"   
  
It was possible, if one had sufficiently mastered the art, to unravel a potion from its finished product to the ingredients themselves, and further down, to the intent, to the signature of the brewer. An antidote required a cause. He would have to unravel Lucius.   
  
-  
-  
-   
  
He steepled his fingers carefully, regarding the girl who had finally slumped into the chair opposite his desk. Fuscienne Valerian was a second year Slytherin girl of average intelligence, rather plain in the face, and not particularly well-liked by her peers due to her unrepentant shyness. Her parents were killed over the weekend while she sat in a corner of the Three Broomsticks nursing the one treat she would spend her allowance on: a butterbeer. The rest was carefully saved into a pouch between her mattresses. He had no idea what the girl saved the coins toward. Truthfully, he did not care.   
  
"Did they—was it the Death Eaters?" she said finally, staring into the cup of hot cocoa he had given her. "I told them—I told them they shouldn't . . ."   
  
He waited.   
  
"My mum didn't want to go, but . . . dad said it was the best thing to do, to ensure our future. Dad said—it was the only right thing to do, being that we are a pure-blooded family." The girl's voice had taken on a certain timbre that he assumed was an approximation of her late father. "He said . . . they wanted me, too, when I was old enough, but I didn't want to go, either. I was supposed to go home that weekend, but I said no, because it was a Hogsmeade weekend, and I really wanted to go to that . . ."   
  
He continued to wait.   
  
"Do you think they would have killed me, too?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Why did they kill my mum and dad if they were going to join?"   
  
He had read the files on both of them. "They were not considered sufficiently useful. Contrary to popular belief, pure blood does not equate magical skill. Neither of your parents was particularly gifted."   
  
The girl's eyes flared briefly in indignation, and then she sighed and settled back into the uncomfortable chair. "Mum even had a hard time lighting the fire when she was tired," she said. "She used to think old Ollivander had sold her a bad wand, but when she took it back, he just knit his brows at her and told her that the wand doesn't make the witch."   
  
He resisted the impulse to drum his fingers on his desk. He refilled the mug of cocoa politely, waving at it with his own very functional wand. Pouring directly for a _student_ was unthinkable.   
  
The girl nattered on. She did not seem particularly bereaved.   
  
"Would you like to attend the funeral? I can have your coursework owled to you."   
  
"Nah," she said, heaving herself up out of the chair and setting the cup down with a clatter that made his teeth clench. "We never really got along."   
  
On her way through the door, she paused and turned around. "The hat wanted to put me in Hufflepuff," she said offhandedly, as if she were commenting on the weather. "But it said I didn't love anything enough to be in a house that was that devotional; that I was too stupid for Ravenclaw and too cowardly for Gryffindor. I realized, at some point, that the only things the Slytherins love are themselves, and I love myself, Professor, much more than I ever loved my parents."   
  
The damn hat was growing senile. 


	8. Part Eight

**A/N: I was in a motorcycle accident on 8/1/04. I required surgery to mend the broken bone and the torn muscles required a great deal of sitting around drugged to the gills. This story has never been abandoned, but it was put on hold until I could recover from the accident and the subsequent medical treatment. It all took much longer than anyone anticipated, and I thank you for your patience.**

**-**

**-**

**-**

"I hear interesting things, Severus, brought to me on pale wings," Voldemort said, filled with unnecessary dramatics and self-importance. Snape stood before the decaying throne (someone had commented that Voldemort upholstered it with the skins of muggle-born children, but Snape hadn't any idea if it were true), legs slightly apart for balance. His hands were clasped behind his back; he did not think about the wand concealed in his sleeve. The Death Eaters surrounded them in a half circle. He could feel Lucius' presence behind him, two bodies to the left. Even when Lucius tried to still himself, it was only the silence of winter sky.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" Voldemort's voice was lazy, bored. He sought entertainment. They had played this game too long for it to be properly entertaining.

Snape made a fanciful attempt at meekness of tone and servility. "What accusations are leveled, Lord?"

"Lucius tells me that I was wrong about you, Severus, that I was incorrect in my interpretation of your character."

He was less afraid than he had anticipated. All of his careful preparation of his mental state was ultimately for naught. This was somehow disappointing to him. His heart felt cold and absent—there was ultimately nothing to hide. He wondered if Dumbledore knew, or if it mattered now.

"And what does Mister Malfoy say, Lord?"

"He tells me that it was through your direct influence that the children could be taken at all, that you assisted my Death Eaters in passing unnoticed until they could be captured. That you had, in fact, been responsible for the elixir that rendered the girl useless, incapable of shouting for help even in the crowd."

There is a specific sort of pain that comes from having all of the air removed from one's lungs. It is worse than drowning, because you are drowning in the free air, unable still to draw breath. Despite the mask, he allowed none of it to show on his face. He, in fact, lifted one brow laconically.

"And you had expected what, precisely, my Lord?"

"It was the young Malfoy's opinion that you worked for Dumbledore, Severus, that you had spent much of your time endeavoring to convince the younger Slytherin children that they did not belong in my ranks, in our future."

"My lord, you would believe the words of a child over one of your most trusted servants?"

"Lucius has served me well. Obviously you have, as well, but I am curious, Severus: why did you not bring this to me directly? Why did you not wish to crow in your victory?"

"Have I ever, Lord?"

"When you were a boy, yes. You were frequently quite proud of yourself, Severus."

"Let us say, then, that adulthood and maturity bring about a certain lack of a desire to behave like a fool simply because one has had an accomplishment."

Voldemort laughed; it was the sound of steel on concrete. His face twisted with an afterthought, but he merely waved one clawed hand at Snape, forcing the man to stumble backwards out of the smaller circle near the throne.

-

-

-

"What are you playing at, Lucius?" he demanded later, placing the cat bag on the divan and unfastening it. It was a long weekend; he intended to stay this time, whether Lucius wished it or otherwise.

Lucius reached to scratch the cat's ears when it emerged from the bag. It flattened itself beneath his hand, attempted to meld with the divan. "You've never appreciated it when I've saved your life," he said lightly.

Severus ignored him and poured a glass of brandy.

"Of all the things to choose as a familiar..." Lucius frowned when the cat melted beyond his reach.

Severus glanced at him. "A cat is the traditional choice, is it not?"

"For a _witch_."

Severus shrugged, taking his seat. "I am a traditionalist."

"What does it _eat?_"

"Other familiars: rats, very small owls, the occasional frog. What do you _think_ a cat consumes, Lucius?"

"Specifically formulated Severus Snape Brand feline dinner?"

"I would consider throwing something at you, Lucius, if I were not such a well-respected member of the wizarding world."

"Narcissa makes a habit of tossing expensive wine glasses at me on a regular basis. Draco has yet to learn how to have an attractive tantrum; though I am certain careful observation of his mother will no doubt pay off."

"Heaven forbid I should ever have a thing in common with Narcissa."

"Aside from me, of course."

-

-

-

_Speak of the devil and he will appear._

Narcissa paused in the doorway, framing herself for effect. She was dressed in sumptuous winter white, the color enhancing the pallor of her skin. A glass of white wine dangled from her hand. She struck him as being very slightly drunk. Snape was unimpressed.

"Severus," she said, "my son tells me that you did nothing when that Potter child viciously attacked him on the quidditch field. With such dubious parentage, one can hardly be surprised at his stunning lack of manners, but, Severus, really, how could you allow him to do that to our son?"

"I hardly consider an easily mended bloodied nose to be a severe detraction from the welfare of your sainted son."

She trembled with irritation.

"Narcissa, might I implore you? If you intend to lob that glass at my head, do allow me to toss up a shield. I've never quite managed to get the reek of that swill you call wine out of my clothing."

Shrieking with impotent fury, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room. While Lucius had a flair for the dramatic, at least his often took the form of something useful. Pure blood was no promise for intelligence, Snape mused. Draco acquired his weakness from his mother. Lucius would have never gone crying to mummy over a such a trifling thing.

-

-

-

Dumbledore was on his third glass and McGonagall was not far behind him. The two of them sat in a pair of armchairs that had been turned to face the windows; the bottle lay between them, momentarily forgotten.

Snape cleared his throat, feeling rather like a small child being forced to watch his parents make a spectacle of themselves. Dumbledore roused himself, gesturing thickly with one ringed hand. "Severus, my boy, come and join us."

"Sir, I hardly think this is the appropriate time for such a—"

"Nonsense. What could be a more appropriate time? Would you like a chocolate frog? Minerva was kind enough to bring a half dozen of the things. . .I am fairly certain that one is still hopping around in the corridors."

Snape's face closed in distaste. "People are _dying_, headmaster, and you are—eating chocolate _frogs._"

"He's right, you know," Dumbledore said in an aside to McGonagall. She tittered softly, sounding too much like someone on the edge of tears. "Well, I suppose it simply wouldn't do to spend an entire evening sampling a scotch rather older than you are, Severus. Have some news I haven't already received? Brinks and Jones, former suspected Death Eaters, found in a field outside of Manchester."

"Hardly 'suspected'," Snape said dryly.

"What were they doing in Manchester?"

"It isn't near any current bases of power; it is simple misdirection. They were nothing more than fodder, Albus." Snape picked up the bottle and sniffed it experimentally. "This war is turning both sides into a veritable sea of alcoholics."

"Except you, Severus," McGonagall said primly, lips pursed.

"I value my mental faculties."

"Markavian Jones, yes?" Dumbledore passed a hand over his eyes. "A large family; a second or third son, unimportant, sorted into your house—he had brown hair, and kept a teddy bear until one of the other children found it in his trunk. Which of the Brinks?"

"Samantha," Snape said, drinking directly from the bottle. He had been present while they died, held up as an example to the others that their loyalty belonged to Voldemort before any sort of mundane concerns.

"A Gryffindor." McGonagall pressed her lips firmly together, flattening disappointment. "She was young."

"She attempted to stand up to the Dark Lord. Apparently she'd grown fond of Mister Jones. Idiot girl." He drifted to the window, forcing it open with a squeal of ice. The snow blew into the room and he breathed deeply, searing his lungs with the cold. He found it preferable to the scotch.

"Has he taken to punishing the Death Eaters for interpersonal relations?" Minerva could make anything sound like it came directly from a textbook.

Snape leaned his elbows on the sill, heedless of the chill seeping through the wool of his winter robes. "If it interferes with his ability to punish them at will, yes."

"Are you and Lucius in any danger of that?" she asked.

He resisted the desire to snort. He was, however, irrationally annoyed that their association was a matter of discussion. "Hardly, Minerva. Lucius is not stupid."

"Are you?" The question was very gentle.

He turned, frozen in a moment of rare speechlessness: unable to phrase an answer, he stared at her. "No," he said finally, voice tight. "I think I've proven it often enough to my Lord that I will—not interfere."

He had gathered his robes around him, tucking his hands into his arms; she watched him in silence: impasse.

"Ah!" Dumbledore said suddenly, shattering the moment. He held the wriggling, croaking chocolate frog in one aged palm. "Caught it!"

-

-

-

Lucius was twenty-three. Having committed some slightly less than minor infraction, he was on his knees before Voldemort. The long tail of his blonde hair was wrapped around Voldemort's fist.

Lucius was too proud to scream. He was a Malfoy; this was to be expected. His father had never screamed, either. His mother was weak, but she was dead. Small, stranged noises escaped him instead.

Severus dug his nails into his palms. His back was perfectly straight. Even if the mask had not hidden his face, his expression would have been empty.

_"Crucio!"_ Voldemort growled, leaning his inhuman face close to Lucius'. The dark magic and his lust for life everlasting had already begun to corrupt him. Lucius watched him brazenly, despite the muscles of his face twitching as the spell ripped through him.

The potions, of course, did nothing afterward. Lucius lay on his side, curled around his stomach like a wounded animal. He could not stand to be touched, so Severus stood beside the bed, breathing and counting Lucius' breaths.

"Pride will kill us both," Severus said, worldly wise in the manner of overly grave seventeen year olds. Lucius turned over to look at him, a shimmer of tears on the surface of his grey eyes.

"Pride will keep us alive."


End file.
